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28 March 2024

It's charity over celebration for Indian alumni forums in UAE

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By VM Sathish

As people across the UAE gear up to welcome 2012, Indian expatriate associations have chosen charity over celebrations While some alumni associations are sponsoring education of financially-backward students in the South Indian state of Kerala, a few others are setting up healthcare facilities and yet a couple of organistaions are helping meet wedding expenses of poor brides. 

CETA UAE (College of Engineering, Thiruvananthapuram) Alumni UAE Chapter, have formed CETA Galaxy Charitable Trust to help financially challenged students back home. 

Says Sathish Kumar, Chairman, Organising Committee of CETA UAE: “We have launched a programme called HOPE (Helping Outstanding Pupils in Education) to sponsor poor and economically backward meritorious students. We will select about 1,000 students of Grade 7 & 8 from various government schools spread across 12 districts of Kerala. We will also give them Rs5,000-Rs10,000 per year, monitor their educational progress and even guide them into engineering colleges or other higher education institutes." 

Scholarship was distributed to about 30 students recently and the programme will be expanded to other educationally backward districts of Kerala, such as Wayanad and Malappuram, said Alumni President Pradeep Kumar.

Eligibility for student selection include: marks not less than 70 per cent in all subjects. More details available on www.cetauae.org.“Initially we are starting with 150 students and from next year there will be 1,000 beneficiaries simultaneously," he added. 

The alumni started by four former engineering students of the college, have now nearly 1,000 members - all engineers employed in the UAE.

All Kerala College Alumnis Federation (Akcaf) is also offering scholarships to poor students back home. 

AROMA (Aluwa Residents Overseas Malayali Association) and  Vadakara NRI Forum are sponsoring weddings of poor girls in Kerala. P M Abubaker, President, AROMA UAE, said the group will organise marriages for 11 poor girls selected from the various villages and towns of Aluwa, a city close to Kochi. 

“The marriage function will be held in July. Each bride will be given 40 grams of gold and Rs50,000," he added.“We are also trying to bring one couple from the 11 to the UAE to celebrate their honeymoon." 

Vadakara NRI Forum, meanwhile, is conducting its fourth group marriage programme in the state. The Forum has already setelled 102 girls. 

Similarly, Attingal NRI Association, Anta, is organising a healthcare programme in Kerala to help poor patients who suffer from kidney ailments. 

The scheme will be inaugurated on February 15, 2012 in Abu Dhabi Kerala Social Centre.The group will set up a dialysis unit with two machines in Attingal to help economically backward patients, including the Gulf returned expatriates. 

Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) is also expanding the free dialysis centres in Malabar, according to Abubaker of AROMA. 

There are more than 1,000 associations representing various groups and regions of Kerala, active in the UAE.